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Cox: Cup champs school Leafs, 6-2

With the veteran blueliner exiled to the press box for the first time in his career as a Maple Leaf, his teammates went out and delivered a flaccid performance that ultimately led to the team’s first regulation defeat of the season.

The Stanley Cup champion Boston Bruins routed the Leafs 6-2 in a game that was at least as one-sided as the score indicated, with Toronto backup goaltender Jonas Gustavsson pelted with 43 shots as the Bruins pretty much did everything and anything they wanted all night.

The 4-1-1 Leafs took out four bodies from the lineup that had beaten Winnipeg 24 hours earlier and inserted four others, and not one of the fill-ins did very much at all to lift the team in its third game in four nights. Anticipating a rough, physical game, the Leafs dressed tough guys Colton Orr and Jay Rosehill, neither of whom played much or did much.

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Cody Franson went in for Komisarek and was minus-3 on the night, another disappointing performance from a young blueliner the Leaf braintrust felt certain would be a significant addition to the blue-line corps this season when he was added from cash-strapped Nashville in exchange for the Leafs also being willing to take on the contract of the concussed Matthew Lombardi.

Nazem Kadri, meanwhile, was back up from the minors less than 24 hours after being demoted. He had some jump to his game and picked up an assist, enough to probably keep him in the lineup for the second leg of this four-game road trip in Montreal on Saturday.

But on a night when the NHL’s leading scorer, Phil Kessel, was pointless and nowhere to be seen during the game and unwilling to give his version of events afterwards, the Leafs didn’t have much else to throw at the champs.

“We just didn’t have our legs,” said head coach Ron Wilson, playing the fatigue card. “”We just didn’t have the energy to match theirs.”

Hmmm. After six games played over two weeks, the Leafs are weary. Interesting.

The Bruins sure didn’t look like the team that had been battling a Stanley Cup hangover. They were humming on all cylinders for the most part, needing quality stops from Tim Thomas only during the second half of the second period when a Leaf push threatened to make a game of it.

“Our thought is now to try and play the same way next game,” said head coach Claude Julien. “Let’s try to build some momentum here.”

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The Leafs, meanwhile, may have size on the back end, but they don’t use it, as battle after battle was lost against Boston, making it a miserable night for Gustavsson, making his first NHL start since Jan. 19.

Gustavsson’s no threat to James Reimer as the No. 1 netminder in Toronto. But with Ben Scrivens and Jussi Rynnas breathing down his neck, he needs to demonstrate an ability to play every fourth or fifth game and keep the club competitive, and to some degree he did that against the Bruins.

That said, he’s now surrendered 17 goals in his last three starts. That’s horrendous. Any team needs better numbers out of its backup than that, regardless of the difficult circumstances.

“Some games are tougher than other games,” said Gustavsson. “When the guys need me, that’s when I’ve got to step up.

“As a goalie, you’re never happy with a loss, and six goals is not good. But I felt pretty comfortable.”

In 22 games over the last two seasons in which he got the decision, Gustavsson has been the loser 16 times, and in 10 of those games he’s surrendered four goals or more. The Leafs chose not to sign a more experienced goalie over the summer, and Gustavsson has not yet shown an ability to thrive with irregular work.

“I’ve just got to find a way to do my job and improve,” he said.

To be fair, Gustavsson did a decent job of keeping the Leafs in the game for 40 minutes. The Leafs trailed 3-1 after one period and had a host of good scoring chances late in the second but couldn’t score on Thomas.

Then, on a play on which both captain Dion Phaneuf and Franson were beaten badly off the rush, Milan Lucic got his first goal of the season off a feed from Tyler Seguin, who had a three-point night.

That made it 4-1, and soon after it was 6-1 as the Bruins poured it on. Wilson searched for a silver lining and detected what he assessed was an improved outing from Luke Schenn, who played more than 19 minutes and was a plus-2.

Rookie Jake Gardiner, meanwhile, led all Toronto blueliners, logging 23:46 while picking up his first NHL point.

Komisarek, an assistant captain, did his best to shrug off being a healthy scratch, and Wilson did say the 29-year-old veteran would be back in the lineup Saturday in Montreal.

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